


The Continuous State of Being Fine

by devotchka



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Emotional Baggage, Intimacy, M/M, Mild Kink, Romantic Tension, Sexual Content, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-02 02:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20268613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devotchka/pseuds/devotchka
Summary: For so much of his life, John stays in Lasky's head like a fever dream -- just a glimpse of something otherworldly, something you miss if you blink.And then things change.





	The Continuous State of Being Fine

The first time they touch – _really_ touch – Lasky feels like he is flint holding steel, like he might be used to strike sparks and then crumble.

He can tell himself he feels that way because anyone in his position would, dealing with a living legend, but that would be a lie. He can tell himself it’s got to do with Circinius, or the way that John still towers over him all these years later – a full ten inches taller without the armor and built for force, but that’s not it, either. 

When they’re face to face, Lasky can’t hide behind easy explanations. They stand together at the edge of a secluded observation deck on the Infinity and he knows that none of it is honest.

It’s the way John looks at him now. Lasky shows up like clockwork – same place, any night they’re both off duty – to fill his silence with words about anything and everything. It’s become a lot like that peculiar, solitary togetherness John draws normalcy from. It works. He looks at him like that means something significant – like it helps hold him together.

Lasky isn’t sure if he’s ready to be counted on by someone like John, but he never stops making himself available, anyway, can’t help the compulsion. The problem is that Lasky wants to fix him somehow, and knows that he can’t.

Infinity’s airspace is clear at these hours. The wide, full length windows encompassing the deck pour starlight into the halls, showing off distant planets and vibrant nebulae. Lasky used to be intimidated by the vastness of these views until they gradually faded into normalcy.

He remembers the feeling now, like this, and there is an edge to it that’s wondrous.

John kisses him for the first time there, where they only have privacy because everyone with common sense is already fast asleep. It’s nerve racking. He doesn’t know if it’s right, but he feels like it could be. He feels like the raw, unguarded need that courses through him over simply being so close – John cautiously filling the space between them, his hand gentle where it settles on him – should be enough to tell.

“Is this okay with you?” he asks, and he sounds as nervous as Lasky feels.

He thinks he nods yes, and he lets it happen. More than that, he encourages it. He tiptoes to meet John’s lips, cupping his face and bringing it down towards him, kissing him like he’s something more fragile than the Spartan that he is. Then they part, and Lasky barely has time to open his eyes and breathe a bit before John pulls him back to do it again.

He decides that it _does_ feel right. It definitely feels right.

*

Goodbye kisses only stem the tide for so long, and privacy becomes their new thing. Lasky really hadn’t expected John to know well enough to ask for it; although, with the way military men tend to talk, he realizes he probably should have.

Lasky’s as accommodating as ever. Suddenly the Master Chief is spending time in his room, in his bed, boxing him in against the mattress and his much broader, much heavier frame.

If there’s one thing Lasky knows that John likes, it’s to touch.

They don’t talk about why. He knows how rare it is for John to feel anything beyond the borders of his armor, and this thing they do…it’s unlimited. It’s a lot. John takes his time every step of the way, and Lasky wouldn’t dream of rushing him.

John’s thumb sweeps across Lasky’s lips, his fingers tenderly skimming across his cheek and then down the length of his throat. Nothing slips past him - hasn’t ever - and John makes easy work of figuring out what gets Lasky weak: quick to find the things that make his breath catch, quick to see what makes him tremble, quick to find out what he sounds like when he moans. It’s the strangest thing to watch this man who changes galaxies so immediately captivated by this, by him, over and over.

He already kisses like it’s second nature. His lips move where his hands touched moments before, first gently against Lasky’s mouth, then his cheek, then his neck. He traces the firm outline of Lasky’s collarbone and dips lower, his palm flat and heavy and huge against his chest, feeling muscles and angles he may as well have memorized by now.

Despite Lasky’s outward patience, he’s ungodly overstimulated. He feels the way John fills the space in between his legs and it leaves a need so bad that it physically aches, pooling deep in his center and spreading everywhere. Kissing turns into biting, John’s teeth grazing over the rapid fire of Lasky’s pulse. He wants to be abrupt; he wants to grind his hips into him and say filthy things and just take.

But John is so pure like this, so human, and so he waits.

John’s fingers dip under the hem of his shirt to barely slide against his skin, and then suddenly they’re bolder, pressing down and mapping out the slight curve of his waist. “You’re really warm.” He says, like that’s new and noteworthy, like he hasn’t been touching him in various forms for weeks.

Lasky offers that little half smile of his. He doesn’t always know what to say and feels sometimes like navigating this foreign space is a tightrope. There aren’t words to fix decades of lost humanity; there’s nothing profound in sympathy; there’s no reason to remind him that he always deserved better.

And he’s overthinking, always overthinking. They leave too much unsaid.

It’s John who pulls him out of it – much quicker than most people could, pulling his shirt up as high as he can, given their position, with a decisive, “Take this off. Take everything off.”

He does. Things feel normal for a while.

* 

As far as sex goes, it seems to Lasky that John is more concerned with pleasing him than he is with himself. Lasky can’t be sure how much of that is pride in a job well done and how much is adherence to obedience when they’re still working on eliminating “sir” from his bedroom vocabulary.

All Lasky knows for sure is that he never had to teach John much, and that most of his sporadic questions were about how best to get him off, which is why it’s suddenly so arousing to just _not_ be considered. It’s rare that it goes that way, rare for him to get caught in that sacred space where their motions are about John being selfish and uncalculated.

It’s a bit of a confusing kink to have. He can’t complain. John takes charge and Lasky’s world narrows until it’s just them and the things John wants him to take, just the way it feels to straddle his hips, just sight and feeling and sound.

The sound part is mostly him. He’s no stranger to hooking up with men, but riding John’s cock is the closest thing to being impaled that Lasky ever wants to feel in his life. Even from the bottom John can dictate the pace well, plenty strong enough to guide his movements, shifting his hips as he pleases like he’s a toy, and Lasky can’t do much but tremble and moan and hold on for the ride.

He knows John would be gentler with him if he just said something, but the thing is he likes it like this. Instead of “take it easy” what winds up coming out of his mouth is more like “you feel so good”, gasped out as John pushes him around at just the right angle, pleasure crashing through him in waves that match this aggressive pace.

And then he’s grabbing at Lasky’s face and pulling him down, guiding him into heavy, lingering kisses, always looking for ways to make close even closer. Lasky just goes with it; he loves this passionate, messy side of him, loves that it exists at all. He probably shouldn’t know most of what he does about it, but something about the way John grips his thighs and moans against his mouth makes him truly not care about that.

His capacity for thought doesn’t come back until later, hitting somewhere in the afterglow as he’s exhausted and sore and wrapped up in John’s arms. It reminds him that things he can’t work his mind around are far and few in between, and this is one of them, this dynamic that’s happening. 

So many fickle things — things far beyond the realm of either of their control — had to line up in just the way they did to put him here, and John here. So many odds had to work out in just the right way for him to even come _close_ to returning the kind of gestures John’s already made for him. And then this.

He peeks up at John’s face, turned just slightly, already well on his way to sleep. In his bedroom’s dim lighting, Lasky can just barely make out the freckles crossing the bridge of his nose. He remembers the first time he looked at him outside of the armor - how he hadn’t been phased by the scars at all, expected them, and yet the little things like freckles and vibrant blue eyes felt jarring.

He’s had thirty years since Circinius to imagine a face behind that helmet, and Lasky had never once pictured anything like it.

He shifts around a bit as exhaustion starts to take him. John, still barely awake, squeezes him a bit tighter. In the peace and quiet of their bed, it almost makes Lasky say something stupid and romantic.

Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone in my new favorite tiny pairing -- you've all inspired me with your great ideas and fascinating dynamics and I have a thousand other ideas jotted down, so idk why I started with the sad one; so long as it isn’t wildly off the mark I’m pleased with it. I’m trying to deal with concepts like absurdity and fate-not-fate here, but my words are like no.


End file.
